THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a bid to reform KSRTC, the government plans to reconstitute the board by including more professionals. As part of it, political nominees on the board will be replaced by professionally qualified persons.
This proposal by Transport Minister Antony Raju has received Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijay's nod and a formal order will be issued on Monday, said a source. The reform measures have come at a time when the pension distribution in KSRTC has been disrupted after a gap of three years.
The Sushil Khanna report on modernising KSRTC had recommended reconstitution of the management and board with professionals. The report said that lack of professionalism had come in the way of reforms in the ailing organisation.
The 15-member board headed by KSRTC CMD Biju Prabhakar consists of seven official and eight non-official members. The official members are drawn from transport, finance and law departments as well as from road safety authorities and National Transportation Planning and Research Centre. The non-official members are nominees of political parties and trade unions.
When the board was set up originally, only professionals were allowed as members. The political appointees made way into the board when R Balakrishna Pillai became the transport minister. The LDF manifesto stressed on reforming the management and bringing in professionalism in the public sector units. However, the non-official directors said that the LDF government would not completely avoid politicians.
"It is true that the KSRTC requires professionalism. At the same time, the political nominees are not against any reforms. In fact, we blew the lid off the Rs 100-crore accounting fraud in KSRTC. The issue came to light as we refused to approve the unaudited accounts," said a non-official director.
'Board critical of a few executive directors'
Another director requesting anonymity said the board had regained its powers and was critical of a few executive directors for failing to meet the educational qualifications and lack of transparency in the functioning.